1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2012-043649 discloses a connector with a female first housing and a male second housing including a fitting tube portion. The first housing includes a terminal accommodating tube portion for accommodating terminal fittings and a tubular front holder surrounding the terminal accommodating tube portion. The front holder is mounted onto the terminal accommodating tube portion from front. The front holder has a function of retaining the terminal fittings and other functions.
As a means for locking the front holder in a state mounted on the terminal accommodating tube portion, it is considered to form a resilient locking portion resiliently deflectable toward an outer peripheral side on a peripheral wall portion constituting the front holder and lock this resilient locking portion to a receiving portion on the outer periphery of the terminal accommodating tube portion. In this locking structure, the resilient locking portion is resiliently deflected to project toward the outer peripheral side of the peripheral wall portion by interfering with the outer periphery of the terminal accommodating tube portion in the process of mounting the front holder onto the terminal accommodating tube portion. When the front holder is properly mounted on the terminal accommodating tube portion, the resilient locking portion resiliently returns toward an inner peripheral side to be locked to the receiving portion.
The terminal accommodating tube portion having the front holder mounted thereon in this way is fitted into the fitting tube portion of the second housing. A clearance is secured between the outer periphery of the front holder and the inner periphery of the fitting tube portion in consideration of dimensional tolerances so that a connecting operation smoothly proceeds. Thus, the terminal accommodating tube portion may be accommodated into the fitting tube portion despite an incompletely connected state where a part of the resilient locking portion is protruding from the outer periphery of the peripheral wall portion of the front holder without the front holder reaching a proper mount position.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation and aims to prevent improper assembling.